Free Lucky's Girl by William Holloway

all of you, all of you to take up his cross and love one another. Give. Give your time, give your love, because… because…”
    She looked out over the huge crowd filling the church far beyond capacity. She was shaking and sweating, tears streaking her makeup.
    “Because without love, hope dies…”
    And her voice trailed off as she looked out over the sea of sad faces, her eyes settling on a man near the middle of the church. A strong and healthy looking man in a new black suit. He looked so out of place but so familiar. Her hands went up over her eyes as she squinted at him through her tears. She was looking at Kenny . The boy who had spent so many days in their home, the boy who had soaked up their love like a sponge, the boy who was their son’s best friend.
    A booming and the church was abruptly filled with blinding light.
    The big front doors were flung wide open. A man stood in the center of the archway, lit by a blazing reflection of sunlight off a windshield in the parking lot. From the front of the church Abby raised a hand again to block his light. From her angle he was blinding, for the rest he was wreathed in blazing light. He wore flowing white robes and sandals with long lustrous brown hair hanging in curls around his shoulders. He emerged from the light and walked down the center aisle to the front of the church, speaking in a clear and beautiful voice.
    “We have been given a ministry that is far superior to the ministry of those who serve under the old laws, for he is the one who guarantees for us a better covenant with God, based on better promises. If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. But God himself found fault with the old one: ‘“The day will come,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah…”‘ and yes, Elton Township. But I say to you all, the age of miracles is still with us! My father has passed, but we won’t dishonor his memory with despair, we will live this life in joy because we are children of God and deserve to be happy. The kingdom of Our God is NOW!”

    ***
    The air around Jerry was filled with rushing sparks. A faint, high-pitched whirring pressed in from his ears and then out, growing louder, eclipsing his hearing, and constricting his vision from the periphery. He was in a tunnel of sparks. His leg muscles began firing to the tune of the stutter of his heart.
    He couldn’t inhale.
    He couldn’t exhale.
    Mason Fucking James is walking right past me and I can’t club him to the ground, or take him to the cell for a richly deserved reunion because I’m having a heart attack at his dad’s funeral.

    His hands fell from his lap to his sides and it took every ounce of strength to keep his head from lolling to the side.
    I will not collapse.
    I will not have a seizure.
    I will not shit my pants in front of every single fucking person in this godforsaken town.
    ***
    Somethingabout Mason had always made Abby so proud. From the day he’d been born she’d known he was special, that he was different. Every mother thinks her child is special and different, but almost every mother is wrong: Abby wasn’t.
    Her son was a Prophet .
    She and the Rev had known from the first time he’d gotten up in the middle of a reading, walked to this very spot, turned to face the crowd and had recited the passage from memory. And now he stood at the foot of the dais, in front of his father’s coffin reciting those same lines from the Book of Acts. “In the last days, Our God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. On my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to